2a : Episode Nine : Point of No Return, Part 1
by Taidine
Summary: XANA's latest attack has brought the Factory under scrutiny by the local police department.  And just when our heroes thought they might finally get some sleep... Part of an alternate lateseasontwo story arc.
1. Chapter 1 : Starting Points

**Episode Nine : Point of No Return, Part I**

Soundtrack: The Police's "No Time at All (for Jeremie again, and don't tell me I'm using too many Police songs…)

_I'm aware most people haven't read any Coleridge, so I've reprinted Kubla Khan for those poor souls with far too little exposure to poetry. It's not necessary to enjoy the next to episodes, but it helps._

_Taidine_

Kubla Khan

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! That deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! As holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise

Chapter One: Starting Points

"A damsel with a dulcimer/in a vision once I saw/she was an Abyssinian maid/and on her dulcimer she played/singing of Mount Abora." The English teacher paused, standing deliberately in front of the day's notes, and faced his lethargic class. "Is anyone familiar with the poem this stanza is from?" He didn't expect an answer – it was Monday morning, and though the leaden skies of the weekend had given way to a chill, sunny blue, 'perky' was the last adjective he would use to describe his students. Not a single hand rose. "Aelita? How about you?"

A girl in the front with uneven pink hair blinked her way out of a daydream at the sound of her name. "Hmm? No, I don't think I've heard it before. Maybe if you read it from the beginning."

The teacher had already moved on, like a hawk in a white collared shirt trying to pick which prairie dog to swoop down on. "Jeremie! I'm sure you…" he was cut off by a few half-hearted titters from the students, and looked down. He had apparently been talking to an empty desk. "Jeremie's out? Is he sick?"

The class looked silently at their teacher, who gave up. "Well, I'm sure he has a good excuse. Now, open your _Poetry Analogies _books to page one eighty-three, which starts, 'In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn…'"

Aelita's head jerked up from a near doze, single earring clinking. "XANA?" She gasped out.

The teacher looked at her, puzzled; normally the girl, despite her outrageous pink hair and the illogical gaps in her knowledge, was a model student. "Xana_du,"_ he corrected her, "it's a kind of utopian landscape created in the poem Kubla Kahn, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge." Aelita's expression was even dreamier then usual. "Are you alright, Aelita?"

"Umm…" the girl's eyes flicked towards Jeremie's empty desk. "Actually, I am a little faint. Maybe I should go to the infirmary."

The English teacher suspected the most deadly thing Aelita was suffering from could be spelled L-O-V-E, but if every pair of sweethearts were as studious as Aelita and Jeremie were most of the time, he would only have to teach three weeks out of the month anyway, so they were welcomed to whatever romantic rendezvous they had planned. "Go ahead, Aelita," he said.

"Mr. Taverez?" In the back of the room, Theo waved his hand in the air. "I'm feeling a little queasy, can I go to the infirmary too?"

"Certainly, Theo. But first, would you be so kind as to read the first stanza?"

"Uh – actually, I think I'll be okay if I can put my head down for a minute," the boy capitulated. Aelita slid her poetry book into her bag and slung it over one shoulder.

"Well, Herve, why don't you read it?"

As Aelita closed the door to the classroom, it clipped off Herve's nasal recitation. "In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn/ a stately pleasure dome decree…" She had lied to Mr. Taverez. The poem was familiar to her. Somewhere deep in her hindbrain, a hazy memory of a deeper voice took up the stanza. _Where Alph, the sacred river ran/through caverns measureless to man/down to a sunless sea. _Just a voice – another irritating fragment of the sort that had lead Jeremie to believe she had not always lived in Lyoko.

Jeremie. Her footsteps quickened, pink boots tapping rapidly across the floor. He would be at the Factory, again. She tripped down the stairwell. The computer operator hadn't left since XANA's last attack, nearly two days ago now. The door of the school building opened, allowing Aelita out onto the grounds. He had scanned Ulrich Sunday morning to retrieve the antibodies he hoped to save Aelita with, then claimed he would need some time to isolate them. But, Aelita reflected as she lowered herself down the entrance to the sewers, she had assumed Jeremie would show up to class. He _always_ showed up to class.

One scooter and three skateboards were lined up against the wall. Aelita snatched the former mode of transport and skidded off down the tunnel. Of course, she had never believed such a close deadline faced them. XANA only needed an incremental boost in power before it left the supercomputer for good. The other end of the tunnel loomed before her; Aelita braked her scooter and scrambled up. She could understand Jeremie's intensity. Every hour was an hour closer to the point when she would have to decide between her own life and XANA's escape if Jeremie hadn't finished his work.

She understood it, but nothing drove a point home like Jeremie missing class.

The heavy doors of the elevator twisted and disengaged, coming open with a ponderous hiss on the computer room. The glowing holographic map cast unhealthy shadows over the back of Jeremie's blonde head; the computer core hummed, and the keyboard clicked. Aelita could tell her friend was tired even before she stepped out of the elevator; he was slumped forward, and his typing was slow, exaggerated, overly deliberate.

"Jeremie," she murmured as she stepped out, walking over to stand behind the computer chair. Totally engrossed in his work, he failed to look up until Aelita leaned past him to peer at the computer screen, chin practically resting on his shoulder. "You missed English this morning. I don't think you've slept in three days. You can't do this to yourself." His screen was cluttered with lines of green code, at which he was carefully chipping away; he still didn't look up from it.

"I have to, Aelita." His words had the same slow, almost drunken deliberateness as his typing. "There's no more time to keep secrets, there's no more time to pretend to live a normal life." He paused and deleted several lines of code. "There's just no more time," he repeated.

Aelita lifted her head and touched her friend's arm lightly. "Then there's no time to make mistakes," she pointed out, drawing back and taking a seat on the edge of the semicircular computer desk, "and if you don't rest, you're going to start making mistakes."

"I'm almost there!" Jeremie protested. "I just have to finish this. Then we'll turn off the supercomputer and… and this will all be over."

Aelita nodded. "I understand that, but take one hour to eat something and-"

She was cut off by a shrill beeping. Lyokan and computer geek looked up simultaneously to one of the secondary computer screens, where a pale image of a tall ivory shaft wreathed in red blinked into existence. "Not _now!"_ Jeremie exclaimed, and Aelita was inclined to agree with him.

- - - -

Back at Kadic, the dismissal bell rang at last. Aelita's English class thankfully slammed their poetry anthologies shut and skipped out into the clean, chill sunlight outside. Coats were generally eschewed for the quick dash to the cafeteria, so the students cheerfully shivered as their breath clouded on each exhalation and raced each other across the grounds.

One girl, clad in stark black against the colorful outfits of her classmates, had a different destination. Her sprint, though every bit as energetic the cafeteria-bound, brought her up alongside a boy with brown hair and a serious face. "Hey, Ulrich!" she greeted.

He had been walking at a good clip, but he slowed down to match her pace. "Hey," he responded, equally blasé.

She inhaled once, quickly, then let out her breath in a puff of white air. "Do you want to come over my house for lunch? My dad put on some soup this morning, so, uh…" she smiled sheepishly. "It's _probably _better then what they're serving at the cafeteria."

"Uh, sure," said Ulrich. This was doomed to be a conversation punctuated by 'um's and awkward pauses.

The pair walked away from the cafeteria, towards the exit from the school grounds. "It's kind of chilly," Yumi tried after a while.

"Yeah," Ulrich agreed, "November, right?"

She nodded. "Good point." They lapsed into silence once more.

The school gates loomed before them like the exit from a prison compound, invitingly open. They passed out into the Real World without looking back, although Ulrich did look around; when you attend a boarding school, you tend to forget the rest of the world exists.

The Ishiyama household was predictably neat and suburban. Yumi opened the gate; Ulrich closed it behind them and followed her up the slate steps to the door. Yumi knocked; well, 'pounded' might be a better word. "Hiroki!"

After a moment, the letter slot on the door came open. A pair of black eyes peered out suspiciously. "Who is it? Oh, Yumi. Hey…" the eyes fixed on their visitor. "You brought _Ulrich? _For lunch? Oooh, Yumi's in lo-ove!"

"It's cold out here!" Yumi barked in the irritated tones of older sisters everywhere. "Just open the door and stop being a pest, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," said Yumi's brother. The letter slot shut with a clink. "It's okay. Ulrich is cooler then William anyway." The door swung open, revealing a young boy with the same floppy black hair and Asian features as Yumi. "And if you marry Ulrich, he'd be like, my uncle, so he could teach me how to use a katana, right Ulrich?"

"Woah, nobody's marrying anyone," Ulrich interjected, pushing the door shut behind him.

Yumi fixed her sibling with a glower. "If I wanted you in the hospital, I would rather do it myself then give you a katana. Hmm…" she let it trail off and arched one eyebrow in a threatening manner. Hiroki gave a little yelp and scurried away.

"Nice," Ulrich complimented dryly.

"I've had a lot of practice," Yumi replied, at least as droll as her friend. They exchanged smiles; for one shining moment, all was well between them. "Anyway, kitchen's over here," Yumi added, breaking the mood. She sniffed the air apprehensively – there was a faint scent of chicken, salt, and boiled cabbage. "Yep, that's my dad's soup all right."

For several minutes, Yumi bustled around the kitchen, leaving Ulrich feeling useless and vaguely awkward. By the time she gave him a shove towards the table, there were two places set with folded napkins, broad soup spoons, and deep ceramic bowls full of golden broth. A few bubbles of oil floated on top. Ulrich poked at these dubiously with his spoon. "I, uh, guess this means I owe you lunch."

Yumi blew on a spoon full of soup to cool it. "Don't thank me until after you've tasted it," she warned before sipping down the broth.

Ulrich stirred the soup. Some noodles and a few green bits floated to the top. "Seems a little empty," said the student whose experience with soups involved more vegetables then broth, and also came in a can.

"Well, you're supposed to drink it out of the bowl," said Yumi, swallowing another spoonful, "but I figured this would be easier if you'd never… uh…"

Ulrich had dropped his spoon, lifted the bowl in both hands as if toasting her, then very deliberately gulped a mouthful of broth. "…careful?" Yumi warned belatedly.

An expression of pain spread across Ulrich's face. "Augh!" He opened his mouth, fanning frantically with one hand.

"That bad?" Yumi asked serenely.

"Burnt my tongue," Ulrich explained fuzzily, holding his mouth open and continuing the futile fanning motion.

"Yeah – you're supposed to take smaller sips." Yumi's expression was a cross between pity and amusement – although the fold of her brow was concerned, she was biting her lip to keep from laughing. "I'll get you some water."

Ulrich nodded gratefully as his friend pushed back her chair and disappeared into the kitchen. Yes indeed, he owed Yumi a lunch. If only he could cook…

"Ulrich! I think you'd better see this!" Yumi's voice interrupted his thoughts, the urgency with which she spoke immediately banishing any complaints over his burnt tongue.

Dashing past a misty landscape painted in traditional brush style and an ornamentally displayed sword, Ulrich burst into Yumi's living room. She was watching the small television, where the image was a slow zoom on the Factory. "…used by the students of Kadic as a location for the meetings of a group so secret, even the teachers don't know it exists," said the voiceover, a strangely toneless sound. "So why are we telling you about it?" A shot of the elevator; a hand punched in the code too quickly too follow. "Because we can, and there's nothing you can do about it. A secret isn't nearly as much fun if no one knows you're keeping it." There was a shot of the computer room, brief and tantalizing, then it was back to the slow zoom. "This is the Factory, a relic from a bygone era of industrialization, used by the students of Kadic…"

"That's _not _Jeremie," Ulrich pointed out.

Yumi held out a remote and flicked up the channels. "It's playing everywhere," she pointed out.

"Hey, do you belong to the secret group?" Piped Hiroki. The younger boy was nestled among the brocade pillows of the couch, looking distinctly puppyish with his black hair tumbling forward into his eyes.

"XANA?" Ulrich ventured.

"Who's XANA?" Begged Yumi's younger brother, hugging a pillow to his chest.

"Why? Yumi replied, shutting off the television.

"Hey, I was watching that!" Hiroki again.

Right on cue, there was a shrill ringing. Yumi reached into the pocket of her utilitarian black pants and pulled out a sleek black cell phone that opened to a practiced flick of her fingers. "Jeremie? … I'm at my house, with Ulrich. …We'll be right over. Wait, did you see the broadcast? …Well, turn on the news. See you soon." The phone snapped shut and vanished back into its pocket. "Hiroki, you can finish my soup. Put the bowls in the sink when you're done, and…" she slipped into rapid Japanese; her brother nodded.

"But where are you going?" he asked as the two Kadic students raced for the door. They gave no response.


	2. Chapter 2 : Points of Convergence

**Episode Nine : Point of No Return, Part I**

Soundtrack: The Police's "No Time at All (for Jeremie again, and don't tell me I'm using too many Police songs…)

Chapter Two: Points of Convergence

_Due to technical difficulties, this chapter is exceedingly late. Don't worry, it seems to be fixed now, and I promise I will finish posting this story. Some day._

_Taidine_

Back at school, the copy machine swept a line of light across the sheet face down on its glass top, went _chunk, _and spewed out a new sheet of paper with the heading 'Kadic Herald' over the top. A short, red-haired girl snatched it up and held it out for her audience, another pair of female students, one tall and blonde with a pen behind her ear, the other younger, dark-skinned and black-haired. "It's late," said the redhead in a squeaky voice, "and it's short, but it's done!" The three girls exchanged high fives, and the copy machine disgorged another sheet of paper.

"Is it that short?" Asked the taller, fairer girl. When the copy machine finished, there were five sheets of overleaf, which the redhead collected and folded.

"Slow news week," said the third girl, "and you made us cut our gossip column."

"Yeah, Kloe, what's with that?" complained the redhead shrilly.

"It's not… real news," the blonde sighed. "I think we can get this newspaper to… hold on." She touched a hand to her pocket, snatching out a vibrating cellphone. "Hello, cell phone of Kloe."

"Hey, Kloe," greeted the light voice at the other end. The reporter's eyes widened; she mouthed 'finish up' to the other girls in the newsroom and backed out the door.

"Elyse!" She exclaimed once she was safely alone in the hallway, "You're okay! Geeze, I tried to call you all day yesterday. What gives?" She began to pace down the hallway in an agitated manner.

"Oh." Elyse sounded apologetic. "Well, when I got knocked offline, the VR pretty much fritzed out, and something I thought was supposed to attach to it overloaded and loosed a major EM pulse."

"A what?" Kloe asked, still pacing.

"Electromagnetic pulse. It knocked out all the electricity in the house. Did some damage next door, too. They actually called in Interpol, but I told them I'd just plugged it in to see what it did. So they didn't take the VR gear. Is everything okay at your end?"

"William – that's the guy you thought was a Goth – is still in a coma. They sent him to the hospital Sunday and the hospital sent him back. They couldn't find anything wrong. I haven't seen Jeremie since Saturday, but Odd's been covering for him – says he's fine."

Kloe could almost hear Elyse shaking her head on the other end of the line. "Stinks for you, doesn't it? Well, give them my best. I gotta go, I'm late enough for school as it is." The line went dead.

The blonde reporter flicked her phone shut and looked up from her feet, realizing her pacing had led her to the door of the infirmary. _Heck, why not? _She knocked on the door.

The nurse opened it, prim and feminine in her starched white uniform. Kadic adhered to some stereotypes quite rigidly, and this was one of them. "Do you need something?" She asked, looking down at Kloe with disapproval.

"Um… I thought I'd drop in and see how William was doing," the reporter admitted.

"You and every other girl in the school," said the nurse with a sniff. "Go on in. Don't make too much noise, I'm trying to get some paperwork done."

"Oh," said Kloe. _What, you thought you were the only student who had a crush on him? _Asked the sniggering voice in the back of her head. But of course it wasn't a crush so much as a fascination – how many other girls in the school knew William was actually the avatar of an evil computer program? Or whatever he really was. Kloe was a little vague on that point.

He was lying on one of the sterile hospital cots, looking troubled in his sleep. His usual sophisticated demeanor was absent, making him seem younger, more vulnerable. One or two someones had brought flowers – rather pathetic flowers, since the second-rate florists within walking distance of the school didn't have much to work with at this time of year. Nevertheless, arrayed around the bed as they were, they generated a disturbingly funereal air. Kloe bit her lip and walked to the side of the bed. "Hello, William," she greeted, quietly, a little ironically. "Don't feel too bad. Odd was completely trigger-happy this weekend, I think he would have shot me given half a chance."

To her surprise, William stirred in the bed, eyes opening, and looked weakly up at her. "Who…?"

Kloe started involuntarily. "You're awake? I should go get Yolande-"

He reached out and grabbed her hand as she turned to leave. His grip was weak, his fingers cold. "Wait. Don't go."

"Umm… William?" Kloe tried, but she didn't pull her hand away.

"Nu… is that me?" He asked.

Kloe dropped onto the cheap plastic chair by the side of the bed, "No. Seriously. Amnesia?" She scoffed. "You're going to claim you can't remember anything, aren't you?"

"I'm sorry if it's corny," William apologized, "but I guess I know you, huh?"

"I'll get the nurse."

The nurse's office was empty, aside from a disordered scattering of papers. Kloe spent a minute or two poking around in these. Atop the large desk was a form that directed the recipient to 'fill out attached application and mail to'; there was no address or attached application, suggesting where Yolande had vanished to, but that didn't help much.

With a gusty sigh, Kloe dropped the paper and strode out of the office, carefully adjusting the door to the same, slightly ajar, position it had been in originally. "No sign of the nurse," she told the infirmary, squinting at the door. Yes, that looked about right. "I think she went to drop off some mail or something, but…" she turned around, and her eyes fell upon the two infirmary beds – both empty, one with flowers around it and rumpled sheets – causing her to stop abruptly. "Oh. Blood and ashes."

- - - -

Meanwhile, out in the town, three uniformed cops sat around a table in their station. This table was not a top budget priority, so two of the four table legs had cardboard bits stuck under them, and the three chairs around it were mismatched. The money thus saved had been channeled into the box of doughnuts set at the center of the table and the paper cups of coffee each police officer held.

"All right," said the most senior cop at the table, a grizzled, grey-haired man with the beginnings of a beard, "We've all seen the broadcast, and I've given you techheads plenty of time. What've you got?" He looked like he ought to be chewing a cigar.

"Well, we. It seems to be coming from the satellite – er, we think someone must have hacked it." This was the most junior policeman, a scrawny, dark-skinned fellow with glasses; he mind as well have worn a sign that said 'techhead' in messy handwriting.

"Great. So, can we stop it?" The third cop was in fact a policewoman, solidly built with a cap of tightly curled brown hair.

"No. Uh, _we _can't. The company that owns the satellite are going to re-rout their usual programs through borrowed airspace, and they might have to bring it down for repairs," reported the techhead nervously, "but they're shutting down power now, which should cut it off."

The senior policemen nodded. "And the smart-alecs who thought this was funny?"

The techhead passed him a sheet of paper depicting a bird's eye view of the city. One building had been circled in red. "That's the Factory from the broadcast, but I suggest we start any kind of investigation at Kadic."

"Kadic… muttered the policewoman, taking a swig of her coffee. "Something about that school rings a bell…"

- - - -

"Let's do this as quickly as possible," Jeremie told the trio down in the scanner room, typing rapidly at his keyboard. He could have gone through the virtualization process in his sleep by now, which was good, because he didn't look completely awake, eyes half closed from exhaustion. "Aelita can deactivate the Tower, I'll launch a return to the past, then Aelita will download her antivirus. She'll have to go to Sector Five for that; it's too easy for XANA to corrupt the Tower system."

"Just open the scanners," Ulrich growled.

"Right," Jeremie agreed, sounding a touch disoriented. "Scanner, Ulrich. Scanner, Yumi. Scanner, Aelita."

Several floors below the computer room, three golden pillars cracked open like eggs, bright from the lights set into ceiling and floor. The three students stepped in, turning to face the doors as they closed.

"Transfer, Ulrich. Transfer, Yumi. Transfer, Aelita." As he spoke each name, a character card was displayed on the computer: A samurai, katana held out before him, a geisha with a pair of fans that looked downright dangerous, and a pink-haired elf, weaponless but surprisingly serene.

"Virtualization."

- - - -

"Hey, are you going to eat that?" As an opening line, it was pathetic, but the nasal voice delivering sounded practiced, as though it had been thus delivered many times. The white noise of over a hundred students largely kept the words from being heard by anyone beyond their intended recipient – a girl with a pink shirt, shining black hair, and too much makeup sitting at one of the long, white cafeteria tables.

She glanced down at the assorted bits on her plate. Once upon a time, in a previous life, they had probably been meat and potatoes. "Why?" She asked suspiciously, voice thin and shrill.

The student who had addressed her, a scrawny, purple-clad boy with a spike of upswept blonde hair adding several inches to his negligible height, glanced down the table to see if there was anywhere he could comfortably sit. The benches next to and immediately across from the girl were occupied by her usual cronies, both of whom were looking at the boy in an unfriendly fashion. "Because it would be a shame to see it go to waste," he explained, and, after a moment, because sometimes you can't resist, "or to _your _waist."

The crony on the far bench, black haired and spotted with acne, got it before his mistress did and glared up at the blonde interloper. "Odd, go away," he said wearily.

Odd gave him a cursory glace and looked back at the girl. "But Sissi, _mi amore, _you know I'm just looking out for you."

What did you call me?" she asked suspiciously.

"Umm… Sissi?" he tried

"The other one. In Italian."

"But I thought you studied Italian," Odd said innocently, dancing around the question. Sissi's glare was scathing, but under the watchful eyes of her sycophants she couldn't possibly admit to ignorance.

"Oh," she said at last, as though recalling something, "that."

"You want us to get rid of him?" asked the crony sitting next to her, a large, orange-haired boy who looked like he could make good on that threat.

"No," said Sissi, looking thoughtfully at the purple-clad boy. "Herve, move over and let him sit."

The nerdier crony moved over grudgingly, exposing a few inches of cafeteria bench, but before Odd could sit down, there was a burst of techno music from one pocket. He frowned and pulled out a cell phone. "Hello?"

Sissi shoved her lunch tray to one side, clearly straining to hear the voice at the other end of the earpiece, but she could only make out Odd's reply: "Really?" followed, after a pause, by, "Yeah, I'll be right over." He flipped the phone shut. "_Scusi mi, mi amore. _I have to go save the world," Odd told Sissi with a flippant grin, then darted for the cafeteria doors.

Herve, who had studied enough of the romance languages to puzzle out Odd's endearments, glowered at the boy's retreating back. "Save the world? Can you believe that dork?"

Sissi frowned, glanced at her lunch tray, and stood up. "I'll be right back."

- - - -

This part of the forest sector was lush and saturated in color, from the vividly green turf to the dark brown of the densely packed tree trunks. There was a layer of interlaced pathways to serve as ground, growing closer and closer set in one direction, until it was really solid ground with holes punctuating it; the trees also grew closer, so despite the unreal intensity of color, it looked more like the woods on Earth then the wide-set, floating paths in the other direction.

Against this verdant backdrop, three wireframe figures phased into existence. Color spilled over them like paint, revealing samurai, geisha, and elf floating, backs stiff and eyes closed, several feet off the virtual ground.

Yumi felt herself falling, and bent her knees to absorb the impact, landing in an easy crouch. Automatically, both hands reached for the fans tucked in her obi, pulling them free and flicking them open with a metallic _shing _before she had even opened her eyes.

Behind her, Aelita and Ulrich hit the ground with twin thumps. Yumi spun around on one small toe, scanning the area for threats; Ulrich did the same, katana held warily in front of him. Aelita merely peered off into the virtual jungle ahead, murmuring under her breath; Yumi could make out what sounded like part of a poem. "…_and there were gardens, bright with sinuous rills/where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree…"_

"Aelita?" Yumi interrupted.

The pink-haired elf shook her head, coming out of whatever trance she had been in. "Sorry. This place reminds me of… something."

"I'm sending in your vehicles," said Jeremie's voice from the air. Yumi smiled slightly as her own overwing materialized before her; it had been a while since she saw this last, and goodness knows she was tired of running everywhere in the program.

"Aelita, you're with me," Yumi said, leaping onto the round overwing platform. Ulrich revved his bike; Aelita climbed aboard.

"The Tower is about ninety degrees left," Jeremie directed still sounding weary and distracted. "Don't go into the jungle yet."

"Got it," said Yumi, squeezing down on her handlebars, and they were off.


	3. Chapter 3 : To the Point

**Episode Nine : Point of No Return, Part I**

Soundtrack: The Police's "No Time at All (for Jeremie again, and don't tell me I'm using too many Police songs…)

Chapter Three: To the Point

_In this chapter, and possibly elsewhere, I give Aelita's full name as 'Aelita Della-Robbia.' I wrote this before I knew the Lyoko kids were calling her Aelita Stones; I figured if she was posing as Odd's cousin, it would make sense for her to share his name. I still think that, which is why I didn't just fix it._

_Taidine_

A pair of police officers strolling around on the Kadic campus was a sight unusual enough to draw the attention of the students. Several faces pressed up against the windows of the cafeteria as they walked past, accompanied by the gym teacher in his red sweatshirt and obligatory band-aid plastered across one cheekbone.

"Happy to help," he was saying, "reminds me of when I served as a plainclothes cop."

"You were in the police force?" asked the female of the pair, the solidly built, curly-haired officer from the canteen. She had investigated suspicious happenings at Kadic before, although nothing had come of it. Her companion was the dark, gawky techhead, presumably in case they located the computer that had hacked the broadcast satellite.

"I'd rather not talk about it," the gym teacher replied enigmatically.

"Yeah, okay," the techhead interrupted, "great. Now, have you noticed any suspicious activities going on among the students?"

"Well…" the teacher thought for a minute. "There's Belpois. I don't think he's been in his dorm for days, but his 1roommate's covering for him.

The policewoman pulled a pad out of her pocket and jotted down something meaningless. "And what's the name of his roommate?"

"Uh – Della-Robbia. Odd Della-Robbia. You can probably find him in the cafeteria – wait." The gym teacher looked up just in time to catch sight of a purple-clad figure racing across the lawn. He was closely followed be a second student with a pink shirt and black hair. "That's him. Della-Robbia!" He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed out another, even louder, "Della-Robbia!" but the boy didn't slow, or show any sign of having heard.

"Come on, Aubyn," said the policewoman to her partner, pocketing the pad, "we can catch them."

"Don't bother," said a flat, nasal voice behind them. It belonged to a pimpled, weedy boy with badly cut black hair, preppy clothes, and glasses. "I can tell you where they're going."

- - - -

Kloe tapped lightly on the door of the newspaper room and peered in the window. The redhead cub reporter looked up from what she was doing, walked over slowly, and opened the door. "We're done," she said shrilly, and Kloe thought she could hear an unspoken, 'no thanks to you.' "We'll open for student pickup after ninth period."

"Great," said Kloe in a hushed voice. "Did Wil- uh, anyone go past here in the last few minutes?"

The two junior reporters exchanged glances. "No," said the redhead. "Isn't William in a coma or something?"

"Did I _say_ William?" Kloe replied, shutting the door. For a second she leaned back against the wall of the hallway, miraculously avoiding several bits of chewing gum stuck to the plaster. _Think, Kloe. Go back to the infirmary and tell the nurse… _What? William was probably halfway to the Factory by now. Amnesia!

The reporter punched the wall in frustration, grabbed her stinging knuckles, and stalked off down the hallway.

She stopped, and backed up several steps.

In one classroom, empty of students, four teachers were sitting at desks around the room. Peering in through the window set into the heavy door, Kloe realized they were watching the television screen mounted at one corner of the room. The flickering image upon it was a slow zoom on the Factory.

_XANA. _Kloe backed away from the door, mind racing. Okay. There must be an attack. Jeremie hadn't called her, but he never did. Fine. _But… why would XANA _want_ people to know it existed? _Safely away from the occupied classroom, Kloe broke into a run, reaching behind her ear with one hand to make sure there was a pen there.

_XANA is an evil computer program bent on destroying the world. _Okay, start with that. But it failed to give an explanation for why it should broadcast the location of the Factory.

So start with something else she knew. _XANA is almost powerful enough to leave the supercomputer. It wants that power. This is probably a gambit for power. _Her run had settled into a steady jog. "So how does XANA gain power?" she asked the empty hallway.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" said William, stepping out of an open classroom door and extending one leg to neatly trip her up.

The next thing Kloe knew, she was sprawled on the floor, palms smarting, one knee throbbing, possibly skinned. William was standing over her, one hand extended as if to help her up. "Sorry," he added. "Can't let you get to the Factory. You're just sharp enough to figure it out and too dull to realize how dumb it sounds."

Ignoring the helpful hand, Kloe struggled to her feet. "I thought you had amnesia," she said, reaching surreptitiously for her jeans pocket.

"I lied," said William casually. "I do that."

"Oh," said Kloe. Her fingers closed around the smooth wood of a pencil. _Well, they say you can kill a vampire with a wooden stake… _In one sudden motion, she brought it up out of her pocket, jabbing it towards her adversary.

William moved more quickly then she had thought possible, grabbing her wrist with one hand and slamming the opposite shoulder into her chest. She fell back against the wall, gasping for breath as the pencil slipped out of her fingers.

"You win," she panted. "Now, are you going to tell me your entire evil plan before sticking me into some convoluted yet easily escapable death trap?"

The fact that he was pinning her against the wall wasn't the entire reason she was fighting for breath, only most of it; even knowing he was evil and possibly not human didn't change the fact that William was _cute. _He smiled, which made it worse. "Actually, I don't plan to kill you. You haven't directly threatened Aelita or Lyoko. But I'll tell you my plan, if you want. It's too late to do anything about it."

Kloe raised one eyebrow. "Right."

"No, really." William moved back, releasing her from the wall but not loosening his grip on her wrist, and tugged her towards the empty classroom he had been concealed in. "Come in, sit down. I'll satisfy your curiosity to the best of my ability, I promise."

Kloe allowed herself to be led to an empty desk and sat, more intrigued then she cared to admit. "All right. Who are you?"

William sat as well, between her and the door, tossing one leg over the other with that infinitely appealing air of casual sophistication. "One of the hard ones, huh?"

- - - -

"I don't want to jinx it, but where are the monsters?" Yumi asked the air, steering the overwing around a curve in the path. The warriors had moved outwards from the jungle, although it was still visible to their right: Aelita wondered again how she had never visited such a large part of the forest sector.

_But oh, that deep, romantic chasm which slanted/down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover/a savage place, as holy and enchanted… _whispered the voice of memory. Had the poem been recited to her here? Or was this what it described?

"Swarm of kankrelats coming in from the jungle!" called Jeremie.

"All mine," said Ulrich, swerving and braking his overbike in a sharp maneuver that caused it to jump off the path, sailing over the void before coming down with a thump on a new path, closer to the jungle. Letting go of the handlebars with one hand, he unsheathed his katana and sent the bike roaring forward.

The kankrelats emerged from the jungle in a wave of spiky, misshaped bodies on scuttling legs. There were maybe a dozen – not much of a swarm, but moving mindlessly forward and firing their lasers as they went.

Sweeping his bike around in an arch, Ulrich extended his katana with the hand not tight on the handlebars so it sliced through the shells of the leading rank, dodging lasers and making his vehicle wobble drunkenly on its single wheel; he caught a good four of the monsters, and they dissolved into gears and metal fragments. One of the scattered lasershots clipped his shoulder, unpleasant although not really painful, as he wheeled his bike around for a second pass, which took out several more of XANA's creatures.

Momentarily abandoning her own vehicle, Yumi flung one fan with a "Yah!" It spun through the air with a metallic shriek, sliced deeply into a kankrelat's domed shell, and spun back towards her; she snatched it from the air and snapped it shut, red silk glimmering, as Ulrich dispatched the final monster with one stab of his katana.

"I'll meet you up ahead," he called to the girls, tucking his sword away.

"The paths join again in about two hundred yards," Jeremie reported, "then you have to turn into the jungle." Yumi nodded, glancing back to make sure Aelita was settled firmly on the overwing platform before clenching the handlebars and starting forward.

"It seems too easy…" Aelita murmured. Yumi shrugged, turning right as the path curved sharply.

"I saw some kankrelats," the warrior responded, "that's more then enough for me." The purr of the overbike became audible as Ulrich came up behind them; he grinned and gave them a thumbs-up.

"No-one was devirtualized. XANA can't be saving his strength for an attack in the real world, because there was nothing but that broadcast." Wait. She had it, she almost had it…

"I think we should just take advantage of it," Ulrich told her, "XANA's been working as hard as we have lately. Maybe it's just worn down."

Aelita's train of thought snapped. "I guess that might be it…"

- - - -

"Odd! _Odd!" _Sissi's shrill voice made the spiky-haired boy slow from a headlong run to an easy jog, allowing the principal's daughter to catch up, panting slightly.

"Took you long enough," he said.

"You could have _waited_. Do you _want_ Herve and Nicolas following us?"

"Nah, exercise is good for you," Odd disagreed, stopping before the hatch covering the entrance to the sewers. They were well into the woods now, under the crisp-edged shadows of trees.

"Hmph," Sissi snorted, letting Odd bend down and pull open the hatch cover.

"No, really," Odd said. "I bet that's XANA's problem. Not enough exercise."

"Or maybe if you get too much exercise, your brain atrophies. I can't think of any explanation for you, Odd."

The insults were rote, without any real heat in them – or wit, for that matter. "We need to get another skateboard," Odd remarked.

"We can walk," said Sissi firmly.

They tread the length of the tunnel in silence, footsteps echoing off the gentle curve of the walls, even the normally garrulous Odd hushed by the eerie effects of sound in such an enclosed space. It was several minutes before they reached the opposite ladder; the hatch at the top was open, allowing a shaft of sunlight to drop to the floor of the tunnel.

"Hmm," wondered Odd, eyeing the phenomena speculatively. Backlit by the stray sunlight, all Sissi could see of him was a pointy-headed silhouette. "I'll go first."

He climbed to the top, peering around suspiciously. Grass, bridge, and river looked normal enough. Jeremie must have forgotten and left the hatch open or something. "All clear," he called, hauling himself up onto the grass.

A moment later, Sissi, too, emerged with a gasp of effort. "Where's the lid, then?"

Odd looked left, then right; the hatch cover was several feet away, next to a clump of bushes. "Weird…" he muttered, sidling over.

The bushes gave a rustle; a woman in a police uniform stood up from behind them. "Della-Robbia. Who's your friend?"

"Sissi _Delmas,_" said the principal's daughter, placing the slightest emphasis on her last name.

"Sissi," said a flat, nasal voice. Herve stood up from behind the same bushes, leaved and twigs decorating his white shirt and a grass stain on one knee. "What a coincidence."

"Ms. Delmas," said the policewoman. "I need to ask you and Mr. Della-Robbia some questions.

- - - -

"Jeremie thinks XANA is some sort of maverick computer program. I mean, he's right, as far as he goes, but what he never figured out is that XANA is still fulfilling its function – to protect Lyoko and Aelita. Aelita and Franz Hopper, who wrote the program, were hoping to escape into Lyoko from… well, they were being pursued by some people. XANA destroyed them, and Franz got scared, so he tried to shut it off, and he had to be… rendered harmless. When Jeremie and the others woke it up, they threatened the program too. They also figured out how to combat it. So eventually, they got Aelita out of the computer. XANA needed a way to keep an eye on her."

"You?" Kloe ventured, rocking forward in her chair. William's smooth voice had her all but hypnotized – Jeremie _never _explained things to her.

William laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the desk attached to his chair. "Pretty much. XANA used Jeremie's materialization program – that's 'Code Earth' – to put an AI copied from itself in the real world. The beauty of Jeremie's program is that whatever it materializes can stay in this world without anyone activating a Tower."

"So you're not XANA," said Kloe, trying to get it all straight.

"Essentially, a copy of XANA," William clarified. "But I've spent enough time as a student at Kadic to develop some of my own opinions. For instance, I don't think the whole world needs to be destroyed to protect Lyoko. It's not a bad place."

"Well, I second that," Kloe agreed, every reporter's instinct she possessed straining to get a word in edgewise. "How about that evil plan I'm too late to stop?"

"Simple. XANA needs to escape the supercomputer to before Jeremie shuts it off. For that it needs a little more power. The easiest way to gain that power …"

- - - -

"Nah, we've never been near the Factory before," Odd lied to the policewoman taking notes in the front seat of the squad car. He was sitting in the back, slumped nonchalantly in the vinyl, with one arm draped over Sissi's shoulder; Herve, sitting at the other end of the back seat, watched with gritted teeth. It was something of a wonder Sissi allowed it; possibly she enjoyed watching Herve squirm. The car was parked on a road in the industrial neighborhood within view of the Factory. All four doors were open, admitting smoke-scented air; the lights on the top flashed slowly, dull without their usual raucous accompaniment.

"So why were you near the Factory today?" Asked the techie cop, sitting backwards in the passenger seat.

"We, uh… were making a map of the sewer tunnels," Odd replied. Falsehoods had always come to him with relative ease. "It's for our civic instruction class."

"That's not true!" Herve interrupted heatedly. "Sissi, you were there. We followed them to the Factory a month ago.

Sissi, with remarkable composure, shook her head. Inwardly, Odd cheered. "No, we've never been here before," she said. "You must be imagining things."

"He might be upset because Sissi just dumped him," said Odd to the cops in a stage whisper, hiding his mouth theatrically behind one hand. Herve's grimace grew into a snarl.

"You do know it's technically illegal to enter the sewer tunnels without a license?" the techhead put in, peering at the three in the back through wireframe glasses.

"No," said Odd, "but I guess we should probably change the topic of our project, then."

"Maybe we should talk to your civic instruction teacher," said the policewoman. "Herve, you said you 'followed them' to the Factory?"

"Right into the computer room," Herve muttered sourly. "It was Sissi's idea."

"Mmhmm." The policewoman made a mote. "And who are 'they'?"

"Odd Della-Robbia, Yumi Ishiyama, Ulrich Stern, Jeremie Belpois, and Aelita Della-Robbia," Herve answered promptly.

"I see. What relation does Aelita have to Odd?"

"She's my cousin," said Odd promptly, "from Canada."

"And Jeremie is your roommate?"

Odd nodded.

"Shut the doors and buckle your seatbelts," the policewoman directed. "We're going to the Factory."

The techie turned around in his seat to face front. Herve shut his door. Odd looked at his for a long moment. Every instinct screamed at him to leap out and bolt. But bolt where? Back to Kadic? To the Factory? If they decided not to chase him, they would be at the Factory in no time at all. At least if he stayed he could stall for time, somehow. Besides, it wouldn't be fair to leave Sissi alone with the cops.

Grabbing the handle of his door, Odd pulled it closed with a thunk. The locks snicked shut, the motor hummed, and the squad car started down the street, red and yellow lights atop blinking at a sedate tempo.

The warehouses in this part of the city were elderly wooden buildings, punctuated by the occasional smoke-belching manufactory plant or cylindrical silo printed with a company logo. The Factory was the only structure boasting noticeable signs of neglect, sitting lonely on its island in the middle of the river. Certainly this squad car was the first automobile to pass over the bridge leading to it in years.

Odd didn't like to think before he acted. It made things too complicated, and it tended to end badly, because if you really thought about something, you didn't have time to do it. He had thought far too long about jumping out of the car, and now, staring out the window at the river below, was beginning to regret it.

Sissi leaned past him, ostensibly to look out the window herself. "What's the plan?" she whispered in his ear.

"We stall for as long as possible. Deny anything Herve says," Odd directed, voice equally low. The window fogged with his breath.

"Some plan," Sissi murmured, pulling back.

The policewoman pulled the squad car over by the entrance to the Factory. "Herve," she called, unlocking the doors, "would you show me exactly the route followed by the group you followed to the Factory?"

The student named climbed out. "We got there slightly before them – myself, Sissi, Nicolas, and one other student, Kloe Makhavi. We were following a map Kloe had… found. We went in and hid in the big room, right through these doors." He lead the way through the massive front doors of the Factory, into the echoing front room, a silent cathedral of dead machines. The policewoman tilted her head at her partner, who broke off from the group to investigate the room's perimeter.

"Wow," said Odd, I've never seen anything like it."

"Ah – me neither," Sissi added quickly.

Herve shot them an incredulous glance. "We hid behind those pillars over there," he narrated, nasal voice made whispery by the acoustic properties of the vast space. "They came out of the elevator – that one, over there."

- - - - -

Skirting the edge of the surreal virtual jungle, Yumi, Ulrich, and Aelita skimmed ever closer to the Tower.

"There should be an opening in the forest ahead of you… like a tunnel in the trees?" said Jeremie, slowly and wearily.

Aelita looked to the tangled greenery to their left; a few yards on, a gap appeared in the vegetation. "There," she said, pointing.

Yumi and Ulrich swerved their vehicles, turning into the forest. The path was a curving one, but subtly so, as if following it long enough would bring you back to the beginning. It was bounded by massive, impossibly tall trees and an unfamiliar, low wall of virtual stone. Aelita, carefully balancing herself on the wobbling disc of the overwing, peered off into the forest. There was more contrast here then in most of Lyoko – dark shadows on the path, brilliant beams of light lancing down to dapple the terrain.

…_so twice five miles of fertile ground/with walls and Towers were girdled round…_

"What?" Yumi asked, looking over her shoulder at the pink-haired elf.

"What?" asked Jeremie.

"Nothing," chorused Yumi and Aelita together, the former a brusque dismissal, the latter a puzzled sigh. Aelita hadn't realized she had spoken the poetry aloud.

The curve of the path wound tighter as they traveled, until it became evident they were not following a circle at all, but a spiral. They came around one final tight curve and…

"Woah!" This was Ulrich, braking his bike abruptly.

Ahead of them, the ground dropped abruptly; a few halfhearted trees floated below on their own islands, but for the most part it was an unobstructed plunge into the virtual void. In that empty space was a waterfall – falling upward.

Aelita followed the column of rushing water with her eyes, feeling illogically anxious; if that way was down, she was glued to this patch of virtual ground with by sheer willpower. The impossible waterfall tumbled, foaming and crashing, into a cerulean pool far above them, and the rippling water flowed off, an irrationally inverted river, into the blank, flat virtual sky. Hovering all around the falls, like steps to reach the river above, massive chunks of earth hovered, slowly revolving about the column of water.

"…and from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething," Aelita muttered, "as if the earth in fast, thick pants were breathing…"

"We have to get around this?" Ulrich asked incredulously, eyeing the pillar of water and the emptiness surrounding it.

"If I can grab one of those fragments, we can go across on it," Yumi said.

_Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail/or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail._

Yumi placed her hands to either side of her white-painted face, delicately resting her fingers on her temples and closing her eyes. One of the smaller fragments of rock slowly rotating about the axis of the upside-down waterfall lit with a faint yellow glow and began to drift, slowly, towards the mainland.

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever… 

"It flung up momently the sacred river," Aelita breathed wonderingly, eyes fixed on the sky.

"What?" asked Ulrich, dismounting from his overbike. The elf looked down with a 'hmm?' and shook her head in the universal gesture for 'I don't really want to talk about it.'

The island of rock met the virtual mainland with a thump right in front of the three warriors. Yumi lowered her hands and exhaled as if she had been holding her breath the whole time. "Phew. Okay, all aboard," she pronounced, leaping off the overwing. Aelita climbed down as well, stepping tentatively onto the rock fragment; it accepted her weight without so much as a wobble. Yumi followed, towing her overwing, and Ulrich brought up the rear, walking his bike. He was only halfway across when the rock pulled away from the mainland. "Uh!" He hurriedly shifted the rest of his weight onto the rock, bumping into Aelita at the center. "Yumi?"

"Wasn't me!" the geisha retorted, grabbing the other handlebar of Ulrich's bike to steady him.

"You're being pulled towards the waterfall," Jeremie reported, voice startling after his long silence. He sounded as though he had been jerked out of a doze. "Yumi?"

"I'm on it." She brought her hands up to her temples again. A golden glow enveloped the rock, bringing it to a jarring halt. "Sorry." It began to move again, more slowly, in a drifting arc around the fall.

In a few minutes, it touched ground on the other side. "How much further to the Tower, Jeremie?" Aelita asked, climbing onto the overwing once more. Yumi grabbed the handlebars and sent them speeding forward.

"It should be right in front of you," said Jeremie. He paused, then added, "no, wait. Turn right."

"There's just trees there," Ulrich observed, "are we looking for a path?"

"No, turn right now!" Jeremie said forcefully.

Yumi leaned over, swerving her overwing into the jungle. Trees flashed past, several close enough to touch, only Yumi's piloting preventing them from smashing into the broad trunks on more then one occasion. Shafts of sunlight flickered past, then illuminated another stone wall, impossibly smooth and symmetrical, looming suddenly before them. Yumi released the handlebars, the 'wing's equivalent of slamming the brakes, and leaned back so her vehicle leapt spectacularly over the wall, then landed with a spin that brought them to a full stop. Ulrich followed barely a beat behind.

They were in another open space, smaller then the waterfall clearing, and dominated by a structure not nearly as fantastic: a tall, cylindrical shaft, bone-white and plastic-smooth, set in a base of massive, tangled cables and wreathed in sanguine mist.

"Last stop," Ulrich quipped.

"Still no sign of monsters," Yumi added, sounding nearly as skeptical as Aelita had earlier.

"XANA's probably worn out from the last attack," Jeremie hypothesized. "From what I saw-" he paused to yawn "-and heard, it was running three program loops simultaneously, possessing William, and sending in monsters. We didn't return to the past, and it's only had two days to recover."

_We didn't return to the past. _Something sparked in the back of Aelita's brain. Why was that important?

She reached out both hands to rest her palms on the smooth surface of the Tower. It rippled under her fingers, then parted like water, and she stepped through into the cool blue darkness. The three rings of XANA's symbol lit with melodious tones as she stepped across them. _Wave a circle round him thrice/and close your eyes in holy dread…_

Clenching her teeth against the unattached memory, she closed her own eyes, stiffening slightly as the familiar weightlessness swept over her and her feet left the ground, the numbers lining the Tower walls falling past her. She touched down lightly on the round platform near the top of the structure – at least, she had always assumed it was the top, though there was nothing more then black above her. A blue screen floated at waist height before her, glowing faintly; she placed her palm atop it.

IDENTIFICATION: AELITA

CODE: LYOKO

"Tower deactivated," she said, and the world dissolved into blackness.

Jeremie relaxed slightly as the red dot on his computer screen blinked off. The humming of machinery that permeated the Factory seemed to drop an octave, becoming that much less menacing. "Good job," he told the Lyoko group. "I'm calling a transport to Sector Five. Aelita has to get there to download the antivirus. Follow the same path out of the jungle.

One yellow and two green triangles began moving in a slowly spiraling path outward on Jeremie's screen. The computer operator tapped a few keys, bringing up a blue dialogue box, and typed in 'Scipio.'

PASSWORD REJECTED, flashed on the screen, bold letters casting reflections on both lenses of Jeremie's thick glasses.

"Huh?" He rapidly typed it in again.

SCIPIO

PASSWORD REJECTED

"No, it's _right,_ Jeremie insisted, typing the same word again and carefully checking the spelling.

"What is?" asked Yumi from his earpiece.

"Um…" he hit 'enter'.

PASSWORD REJECTED, it said.

"I'm locked out!" Jeremie exclaimed, pounding the table with the heel of his palm.

"What?" asked Aelita's voice.

Jeremie shook his head. "I'm having some trouble getting into Sector Five. Just… keep going." He began to type rapidly.

The click and hiss of the elevator doors opening behind him made him freeze with his fingers poised above the keys. Slowly, slowly he swiveled his chair one hundred eighty degrees to face the weathered doors as they pulled apart, revealing a most eclectic cast. Odd and Sissi, familiar faces, and Herve, less welcome but also know, stepped out first. They were followed by a pair of adults in police uniforms, a grim, stolid female with tightly curled hair and a gangly, dark-skinned cop who goggled through his thin glasses at the computer room like an art historian who had just discovered his basement was full of original DaVinci sketches.

"Uh…" Jeremie temporized, groping frantically for an acceptable lie.

"Jeremie!" Exclaimed Odd in puzzled tones, "what are you doing here?"

"Well – I – there was an active Tower," Jeremie began; Odd cut him off with an exaggerated, wide-eyed expression and a deliberate wink. "What?"

"Keep moving," said the policewoman, shoving her way forward. The students were forced out of the elevator. "You! Step away from the computer. You think you can pull a stunt like that broadcast and get away with it?"

"I just need a minute!" Jeremie pulled up the return to the past program, cursing himself for not loading it earlier.

"Don't let him, he could delete the evidence!" exclaimed the techie cop. The policewoman bulled forward; although Odd endeavored to get in her way, he was just a short and rather scrawny student. In the space of about ten seconds, Jeremie was several feet away from his chair, both hands held firmly behind his back.

"I have to! Aelita's in there," he shouted incoherently. The policewoman nodded at her partner, who sat down in Jeremie's seat. "No! Don't touch anything!" The techhead closed the return to the past program and began typing; after a moment, he raised his eyebrows and glanced over at the senior cop.

"It's a video game, or some kind of VR. Nothing that could jam a broadcast satellite."

"Shut it off, then," said the policewoman absently.

"NO!" Jeremie shouted, struggling futilely.

Odd looked at Sissi, mouthing something. She responded with a hesitant nod. He held up three fingers, then two, then one.

"Bansai!" shrieked Sissi, and charged the techhead. Odd whirled around and smashed one stiffened hand against the policewoman's wrist; she dropped Jeremie's hand with an angry cry. Sissi hit her target a glancing blow across the head, knocking him off Jeremie's chair. Herve backed towards the wall, shaking his head in bewildered disbelief.

The techie was on the floor; Sissi spun to where Odd and the policewoman were sparring and lashed out with one foot. The cop was momentarily distracted; Odd capitalized, closing in with a flurry of carefully placed blows.

Jeremie, dazed, clambered back up into his computer chair and pulled up the return to the past program once more. It would eliminate a tremendous amount of his work – he would have to do everything from the last few hours over again – but if Aelita couldn't get to Sector Five, what did it matter anyway?

The sounds of melee rose around him. The program was buried under layers of passwords, ever since that incident with Ulrich; normally Jeremie chipped at them while Aelita was making her way to the Tower…

The policewoman had pulled a truncheon out of her belt. She wasn't about to risk a gun in such an enclosed space – not with her partner down, and certainly not for a pair of kids. Where did kids learn this stuff? The girl charged her, assuming all the proper martial arts poses. The policewoman swung her weapon…

…misjudged the distance…

Jeremie felt something heavy crash against his temple, and everything went black.

- To be Continued -


End file.
